


Stark's Tower for Strays

by unclechrom (ylisseanprince)



Series: Stark's Tower for Strays [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Comics Clint, Domestic Avengers, Fluff, I'm bad at tagging please forgive me, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Pining, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Slash, Steve is smitten, Tony Stark Has A Heart, adopting a cat, fluff and silliness somehow turned into Feels, there's some winterhawk if you squint a lil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20356726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ylisseanprince/pseuds/unclechrom
Summary: Did Tony have a cat? Steve couldn’t remember him ever mentioning one, but the cat seemed way too friendly to be a stray that had somehow wandered in.AKA the story of how the Avengers got adopted by a cat, and it brought them closer together.(The main story is complete, but I'll be adding snippets as I work on them.)





	Stark's Tower for Strays

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know what year this fic is set in, but Bucky and Sam are part of the team because I said so. The Avengers have been living together for however long and have had only minor conflicts with each other because they’re friends who are capable of talking things out with each other. Hell, we could even call this endgame divergent or something and say they’re the alternate 2012 timeline and they find Bucky sooner and the civil war never happens, I don’t Care. I’m just here to have a good time and write a fluffy family fic featuring a fluffy cat.
> 
> I want to thank my friends Emily, Niko, and Sin who encouraged me and gave feedback while I was working on this! I love you all so MUCH.

It was starting to snow, big flakes slowly drifting from grey clouds above the city, and the brisk winter air whipped against his jacket as he turned down the avenue leading back to the tower. It was a little too cold to be out, but according to the forecast it was only going to get worse for the next week, and Steve had been getting a bit stir-crazy in the tower. No supervillains or criminal organizations had tried to take over or destroy the city in the week since Christmas, and quite frankly he had been getting bored going through the same routine day in and day out while it seemed too cold for bad guys to even bother going outside.

Steve pulled up into the tower’s garage and parked his motorcycle in its spot amongst all of Tony’s cars. He grimaced at the salt splattered on the sides but decided it could wait until he’d warmed back up.

As he made his way over to the elevator, Steve noticed movement under one of the cars and knelt down to check it out. When he peeked underneath, he was met with two big yellow eyes and a fluffy orange face staring back at him.

“Well hey there, little guy.” Steve cooed as he slowly reached out for the cat to sniff his hand. After seemingly determining Steve wasn’t a threat, the cat cautiously poked his head out from underneath the car and emerged with a casual stretch before butting his head against Steve’s hand.

Did Tony have a cat? Steve couldn’t remember him ever mentioning one, but the cat seemed way too friendly to be a stray that had somehow wandered in.

He scratched the cat’s ears for a bit before he stood up and headed for the elevator… only for the cat to follow him inside like he knew exactly where he was going.

“Do you live here, too?” Steve couldn’t help but smile at the cat as he brushed up against his leg. He’d never seen the little guy around the tower before, but it wasn’t like it would be that hard to miss such a small inhabitant in such a massive building. Hell, sometimes he went days without seeing Thor or even hearing his overwhelming presence in the tower.

They took the elevator up to the communal floor, and Steve watched as the cat sniffed around the couch for a moment before climbing up on it to find a place to curl up. Steve made his way over to the kitchen to make some hot chocolate to warm himself up faster, and Tony happened to be in there getting some coffee.

“Hey, Tony.” Steve greeted him as he got out the ingredients for his hot chocolate. “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

“Mm, nope. I definitely do not have a cat.” Tony gave him a puzzled look, as he leaned against the counter to watch Steve. “What makes you think I have a cat?”

Steve gestured over to the cat, who was now stretched across the arm of the couch as if he owned the entire tower.

“Who the hell is that?” Tony demanded, as he pointed to the sleeping cat.

All Steve could do was shrug. “I thought he was yours.”

“JARVIS, how the fuck did a cat get inside?”

“It appears to have snuck in while Captain Rogers was entering the garage,” came JARVIS’ unbothered response.

Tony whipped back around to face Steve. “_Really_, Rogers? First Barnes and Wilson, and now a literal stray cat.”

“I found him in the garage!” Steve defended himself. “And then he followed me up the elevator, acting like he knew where he was going, so I just assumed he lived here.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t. So it’s gotta go.”

“What?” Tony’s reaction didn’t really surprise Steve, but it still bothered him enough. “Tony, no, it’s freezing outside and it’s snowing.”

“Then find some lonely grandmother to adopt it. I don’t care, just get it out of my tower.” He was getting fidgety as their conversation turned more into an argument. “We’ve taken in enough strays as it is.”

About that time, though, Clint appeared seemingly out of nowhere and started petting the cat. “Hey, when’d we get a cat?”

“We didn’t. It’s not staying.” Tony answered.

“Aww, but it’s cold as balls out. His li’l beans might get frostbite.” The archer protested as he continued to pay attention to the feline intruder. “I can see the headlines now: ‘Heartless Billionaire Kicks Helpless Stray Cat Out in the Middle of a Snowstorm.’”

“Barton, there’s like, hardly half an inch of snow.”

Steve spoke up, “What if we keep him in my room? It’ll be fine.”

Tony shot him an incredulous look. “Have you ever even had a pet? They’re like little gremlin children, except worse because they can’t communicate in human languages.”

He started rattling off a list of everything that would have to be done if the cat stayed, and Steve quietly committed it all to memory.

“Who’s going to make sure it’s up on its shots? Make sure it doesn’t wander somewhere dangerous? Feed it regularly? Empty its litterbox? You sure as hell won’t catch me—“

“I think I can manage,” Steve interrupted, giving Tony a challenging stare. He wasn’t sure why the man was getting quite so worked up about a little cat.

“Sure you can, Cap.” Tony clapped his shoulder as he turned to leave the floor. “Well, looks like Barton’s already attached, so you might have to fight him for the cat.”

“What can I say, I sympathize with strays.” Clint nonchalantly provided. “We can have shared custody, Steve.”

Steve took a moment to just watch as Clint was taking to his new role as Ear Scratcher with much delight as the cat repeatedly pushed his head into the archer’s hand, wanting more attention. The little guy sure was affectionate for a stray, and Steve couldn’t help the fondness he was already developing.

That afternoon, he and Clint teamed up to take their fluffy friend to get a check-up at a nearby vet and see if he was microchipped. Since they didn’t have a carrier or even a harness, Steve had to carry the cat the entire time, but to his surprise, he just settled in like he belonged there.

“Wow.” Clint looked somewhat impressed at the sight of the cat peacefully curled up in Steve’s arms. “He sure likes it there, but I don’t think anyone would blame him for that.” Clint wiggled his eyebrows at him, but Steve steadfastly ignored his teasing.

The little guy was given a clean bill of health, but the vet wasn’t able to find a microchip. Steve thought he caught the vet offhandedly insinuating the cat was probably dumped by someone who didn’t want him anymore or couldn’t take care of him. Apparently that was a frequent occurrence after Christmastime. He definitely caught Clint visibly stiffen in his peripheral at that.

Afterwards, they called shelters and other vets in the area, but no one had reported a cat by his description missing. Which pretty much meant this was happening for real.

The pair stopped by a pet store on the way back and picked up anything and everything that a cat could ever possibly need. Steve mentally went down the list of things Tony had mentioned earlier to make sure essentials weren’t missed in the rush of enthusiasm.

At one point Steve picked up a little feathery bird toy he thought he saw the cat eyeing on the shelf, and Clint let out a dramatic gasp, “Are you trying to turn our child against me?”

“You don’t even have feathers.” Steve rolled his eyes at Clint’s antics and dropped it into the cart anyway.

He couldn’t even protest when Clint decided to get the cat a purple collar because the way the color popped against the orange of his fur was just really nice. The archer had declared the cat looked “dashing” in purple, and honestly, he was right.

And that was how the Avengers got a cat. 

Clint insisted on naming him “Orion” and kept talking about a galaxy like he was quoting something. Steve later found out Clint had gotten the name from a cat in a movie instead of the constellation itself, and once Clint found out that Steve hadn’t seen Men in Black yet, an impromptu movie marathon had happened.

Bucky was the first of the team to wander into the living at some point during the first movie.

“Hey Stevie, word on the street is you picked up another stray.”

“You know I just can’t help myself,” Steve replied dryly as Bucky plopped down on the couch next to him and offered his hand out for Orion to sniff. Without hesitation, the cat uncurled himself from Steve’s side to investigate this New Person. There was a soft smile on Bucky’s face as the cat headbutted his hand, demanding to be pet, and Steve couldn’t help but feel the usual swell of happiness and relief at having his best friend back.

Eventually, almost the entire team slowly found their way to the living room throughout the movies, as it seemed word of the tower’s newest resident spread.

The cat wandered around getting to know all the interesting new people as they showed up. Orion somehow wasn’t fazed by Thor’s booming voice, nor Natasha’s generally intense presence, though Steve noticed her posture immediately softened when the cat approached her. Instead of returning to Steve to settle back down, he curled up in Bruce’s lap and promptly fell asleep, and Steve tried not to feel disappointed about it.

And that was when Tony finally emerged from his workshop and found them sprawled about the living room. He stopped dead in his tracks on the way to the kitchen when he spotted the orange ball of fluff curled up asleep on Bruce’s lap. 

“Et tu, Brucie?” Tony gasped with an exaggerated look of betrayal on his face.

“What? He’s adorable, Tony.” Bruce chided him.

Natasha chimed in, primly, but with a pointed stare in Tony’s direction, “I thought you liked cats.”

Tony was about to fire a comment back at her, but his mouth snapped shut and he left the room without another word.

That was… odd.

Other than a few awkward occurrences with Tony, most of the Avengers warmed up to the cat just as quickly as he did to them. Steve tried not to focus on how Tony seemingly tried to avoid the newest resident. They mostly let the little guy run around the communal floor and Steve’s room, but Steve suspected that sometimes the other Avengers catnapped Orion to take him to their own rooms, too.

Steve had been relieved when Natasha had agreed to help him put the little gel caps on Orion’s claws to keep him from scratching things. He’d been worried about somehow accidentally hurting the cat during the process, but Natasha’s very specific skillset apparently included expertly trimming cat claws and putting caps on them. 

The little guy didn’t seem to mind the whole ordeal and eagerly gobbled up the treats Nat gave him for being such a good boy. Maybe Tony would warm up to the cat now that he wasn’t a potential fluffball of destruction. Steve had assumed that was perhaps the issue, or maybe it was just that Tony probably didn’t have any pets growing up. Howard didn’t seem like the type, and Tony’s childhood hadn’t sounded very warm or loving from the offhand comments he sometimes disguised as jokes.

Surprisingly, after that Natasha developed a habit of gently murmuring to the cat in Russian, and Steve briefly wondered if she was trying to teach him secret code words like how some people trained their dogs in foreign languages. There was also something terrifying about the way Natasha perched on the couch with the cat in her lap like some sort of movie villain, but Steve tried not to dwell on it.

In absolute contrast to Natasha, sometimes he found Bruce taking naps with Orion curled up at his side on the couch. Bruce had commented that it was very calming, and Clint joked about the cat being some sort of “serotonin machine.”

And while the cat wasn’t allowed into Bruce’s lab, occasionally Steve would find the two of them in the living room doing yoga. Or well, Bruce would be doing yoga, while Orion did his own little kitty stretches on the floor next to the scientist before settling down to observe him. 

He wondered if the Hulk would like the cat, too.

Thor in particular loved to play with Orion using the little mouse shaped laser pointer, loudly declaring the cat a “most valiant warrior” as he darted around, smacking at the little dot as it zoomed around on the floor. A time or two, Thor had tried pointing the laser at someone’s feet to see if Orion would still smack at it. The one time he had been brazen enough to try with Natasha only resulted in the most blank expression on her face, as if she were daring Thor to do it. His warm laughter quickly faded as he directed the laser pointer away from her.

It wasn’t often that all of the Avengers had breakfast together, but it did happen occasionally, and today was apparently one of those days. When Steve had returned from his morning run, he found Clint perched on top of the refrigerator, eating cereal. He nodded in greeting at the archer as he got a carton of orange juice out of the fridge.

While Steve was fixing his own breakfast, Bruce and Tony wandered in, having a fast-paced discussion about some theory they were going to test. Judging by Tony’s already empty coffee mug, the genius was emerging to refuel rather than actually waking up that early in the morning. 

Thor, Bucky and Natasha were already sitting at the kitchen table, and Steve sat down across from them when he was finished making his food. He thought the chair directly across from him was empty… until a precious fluffy face popped up over the edge of the table, sniffing the air eagerly at the scent of food.

“Well good morning, little buddy!” Steve cooed at Orion, who was just barely tall enough to rest his chin on the table while he sniffed, his eyes wide and doe-like in what he’d heard Clint describe as his Puss in Boots face. “You want some eggs, cutie?” 

He was answered by Thor’s deep, rumbling laughter. “He has expressed that the infantile voices you use while speaking to him are quite amusing.”

...It took a minute for what Thor said to truly sink in. Apparently Clint caught it, too.

“What the _fuck_. Can you _understand_ the cat?!”

“Aye.”

The kitchen was silent for a moment as the rest of the team stared at the god seated at their kitchen table, munching on his poptart like he hadn’t said anything of significance.

Bucky spoke first, “Any reason you haven’t mentioned that before?”

“I presumed you were all aware,” he answered.

“It wasn’t in your file.” Natasha added.

Thor just smiled at that.

“Hey, hey.” Clint hopped down from the fridge and leaned against the edge of the table. “Can you ask him a question for me?”

Thor made eye contact with Orion, seeming to ask for approval before nodding for Clint to continue with the question.

“Did he... have a home before us?” Clint’s tone was uncharacteristically serious, his usual nonchalance nowhere to be found.

The god murmured something to the cat, who lightly bobbed his head as he seemed to be listening intently to him. Steve watched as the cat meowed back to Thor in response and wondered when the hell his life became so weird that this was somehow wasn’t even out of place.

“He says that he vastly prefers the tower to where he was before. He considers this his home now.”

Natasha leaned down and gave Orion a kiss on top of his head, and the cat closed his eyes in contentment as he leaned into her gentle touch. Steve heard her whisper, “We’re glad you found us.”

Steve looked around at his team scattered around the kitchen and wondered how in the world he had missed it. He quietly watched as Tony and Bruce began interrogating Thor about the breadth of his understanding of other beings and languages. Natasha and Clint were doing their weird, silent twin assassin bickering thing while Bucky had scooted over to pay more attention to Orion. 

His team had become a family right before his very eyes, but somehow he hadn’t even realized it until that moment.

Sometime that week, a really nice cat tree mysteriously appeared on the communal floor out of the blue, and Clint whined that he was a bit jealous. 

“What? You want a matching one?” Tony teased him.

“Yeah, purple.”

“No.”

There wasn’t a purple human-sized cat tower, but later that week Tony did give Clint some new arrows, including an improved boomerang arrow. (_“It comes back to you.”_ Clint had sounded over the moon.)

One evening they somehow all had managed to be around for dinner, so Steve helped Bruce throw something together for a rare team meal. Orion was perched on Tony’s chair when the man found his way to the kitchen, already doing his Puss in Boots impersonation and begging for handouts.

“Hey, Garfield, none for you.” Tony gently scolded the cat as he nudged him off his seat. His voice wasn’t too harsh, just firm and… affectionate? Maybe Steve was imagining that.

“Do you ever call him by his actual name?” Steve asked him.

“He’s a smart boy, he knows I’m talking to him.”

After that, Steve couldn’t stop watching how Tony would interact with the cat. He didn’t think he was imagining that Tony was interacting more with Orion when the team was together. He noticed Tony giving the cat a little head pat here and there, or sometimes he’d find Tony feeding him, which had been really unexpected, honestly.

“Why didn’t you feed the cat?” Tony admonished Steve one morning after his run.

“But I did before I left!” Steve defended.

“Then why did he tell me otherwise?”

Steve narrowed his eyes at the cat innocently eating what was probably his second or third meal of the day. “Because his Auntie Nat taught him how to lie.”

“He really is going to turn into Garfield,” Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. “JARVIS, start a feeding chart so this glutton doesn’t swindle every person in the tower with that face.”

“His Puss in Boots face?”

Tony stopped and gave Steve a weird look. “Who exposed you to Shrek and didn’t invite me?” 

If someone were to ask Steve why Tony’s relationship with the cat mattered to him so much, he didn’t think he’d be capable of giving an answer. Or at least, not a truthful one. He was just starting to parse it himself and still couldn’t really put his finger on it. All he knew was that he _couldn’t_ stop paying attention to the man (and he really didn’t _want_ to stop either, but he’d only admit that to himself.)

On another day when Steve went down to Tony’s workshop to retrieve the man from one of his insomnia fueled workshop benders, Steve knew he wasn’t imagining the nearly half a dozen cat care blogs Tony had open on a few of the monitors before he quickly closed them when he noticed Steve’s presence.  
Steve didn’t call him out on it, and he did his best to bite back a smile at it.

Steve was watching amusedly as Clint was attempting to teach Orion a few tricks, and it was going surprisingly well. According to Clint, the success was in thanks to his circus background.

“Don’t you dare teach him how to get into the vents.”

Clint rolled his eyes at Tony who had just walked into the living room.

“I thought birds and cats didn’t get along,” Tony continued. “Watch out, Tweety Bird, he might try to eat you.”

“We’ve formed a truce,” Clint answered. “But if he ever turns coat, I can seek higher ground than he can reach.”

“You’ve warmed up to _him_, haven’t you?” The archer added with a sly grin. “No more weird referring to the little guy like he’s some sort of object.”

“No, I’m just being respectful.” It was Tony’s turn to roll his eyes, but Steve noted it lacked his usual conviction. “Remind me again, why the fuck do we have a cat?”

“Because you can’t resist Steve’s baby blues,” Clint teased with an eyebrow waggle.

“I didn’t want to see him mope around; it’s bad for the country’s morale,” Tony muttered before he left the room without so much as glancing at Steve. 

Steve tried not to overthink Clint’s comment because it was just a joke, right? 

...Right?

After a few hours of working out in the gym and sparring with Bucky, Steve returned to his floor for a long, refreshing shower and a change of clothes. Usually this was the time of day that Orion would be in his room, unless one of the other Avengers whisked him away for the afternoon. He looked around for a bit and called the cat’s name, but he was nowhere to be found. There was a tiny voice in the back of his mind that was suddenly worried, but Steve ignored it because it wasn’t like the cat could have really gotten too far away.

“JARVIS?” He still couldn’t help but look up at the ceiling when he spoke to the AI.

“Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“Do you know where Orion is?”

“Currently, Orion is in the workshop with Sir.”

The _workshop?_ Well, that was… a surprise.

“Thank you, JARVIS,” Steve answered before quickly heading down to Tony’s workshop to see what in the world could possibly be going on.

He entered his code to get inside the workshop, and inside he found… Tony chatting away with Orion just like he did with his bots as the cat was stretched out across his table, watching as he worked on something small. 

When did _that_ happen?

“Okay, it’s finished. Come here, honeybuns.” Tony wiggled his fingers at the cat to motion him closer so he could attach what he was working on to Orion’s collar. 

…_Honeybuns?_

Steve watched silently from his spot by the door as Tony gently removed the cat’s collar to add the little orb attachment he had been working on. After it was secure, he put Orion’s collar back on him and started scratching the cat’s chin. He had a soft smile on his face, entirely unlike the one he wore for the press, and Steve couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Tony didn’t look up when he spoke, “How long are you going to stand there and stare, Rogers?”

Oops. 

“Is there a time limit?” Steve hoped he sounded casual rather than embarrassed at being caught staring.

“No, but I do charge by the hour,” Tony smirked playfully.

Steve crossed the workshop to stand next to the table Orion was sitting on and reached out to get a better look at the orb-shaped pendant dangling from his collar. Upon closer inspection, Steve realized it must be some sort of replica of the galaxy from the Men in Black movie he’d watched with Clint. The detail was amazingly intricate, and it was actually smaller than what he remembered from the movie’s version of it.

“It’s not an exact replica. Smaller, probably more lightweight, and generally not so clunky because it’s not the 90s anymore.” Tony started to explain without any prompting. “It’s got a few purposes. Tracking, in case he somehow gets out of the Tower or gets catnapped. It’ll help Jarvis know when to open doors for him on floors he has access to; if he waits in front of a door for at least five seconds, it’ll open for him. That way he’s not just cooped up or at our mercy all the time.”

“And it’s cute and stylish,” he finished with, smiling at the cat again.

“Are you planning on him being kidnapped?”

“We’re the Avengers, honestly the math points to it being highly likely at some point.”

“Wouldn’t a tracking microchip have worked better for that?” Steve asked.

“...he’s got one of those, too. Better than the worthless junk vets use. For all his whining that he’s ‘not that kind of doctor,’ Bruce helped with it.”

“It’s…” Tony started, with a tired sigh. “It’s a little frightening when something so small and… defenseless depends on you for safety.”

“Natasha was right, I do like cats. But I honestly didn’t think you were going to keep the little guy.” Tony’s voice sounded distant, and the ‘I didn’t want to get attached in case’ was unspoken, but Steve could feel it. “Attachment isn’t something I deal with well, if you haven’t caught on by now, let alone when the attachment is to something… squishy.”

“Though I’m not even good with the more durable ones, like gods or super soldiers, especially not when the super soldier has a habit of jumping from buildings or planes without a parachute. Or using themselves as a human shield.”

“Steve, you do know you’re not actually bulletproof, right?” Tony narrowed his eyes at Steve, exasperated fondness in the lines around his eyes.

“That’s a bit pot and kettle coming from the man who flew a nuke into a portal to space,” Steve added, his own voice coming out softer than he expected.

“Touché.”

Tony was quiet for a moment after that, seeming lost in his own thoughts.

“I guess after Pepper left… I just assumed you guys would be next. But you’re still here, God only knows why, and there’s even more of you now. Just judging by my own track record, I should’ve bolted like months ago. But I guess I’ve come to terms with the idea that you all are actually sticking around, so now I’ve gotta make sure you don’t up and die after I’ve finally decided I kinda sorta am fond of you.”

Steve gave him a small smile, but he remained quiet and let Tony continue. He wasn’t really certain why Tony was sharing this information with him, but he absolutely was not going to take such a moment for granted.

“That’s why I hole myself up down here so often.” He dragged a hand down his face as he looked around at his ongoing projects around the workshop. “I can make gear that’ll keep the team safer out on missions. If you were to get hurt when I could’ve done something to prevent it, that’s on me.”

His self-consciousness seemed to kick back in after that, and he cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to look anywhere but at Steve. “Okay. Tony Stark Oversharing Hour is over.”

Steve had already been fond of Tony. The man was not only his closest friend after waking up from the ice, but he was also his perfect partner on the field. Somehow though, hearing him talk about protecting the cat and the team endeared their resident genius to him even more.

Tony finally looked back to him. “What’s that dopey smile for?” 

“You’re just a big softie.”

“Don’t you dare utter those words outside of this room or I’ll sue you for defamation,” Tony bristled, though Steve could tell it was more of an act than anything.

“Tony.”

“What?”

“Just don’t push yourself so hard. You’re not alone anymore, and I’ll be damned if we’re going anywhere.” 

He didn’t seem to know what to do with that. In front of him was the true Tony Stark, caught slightly off guard with his masks down, looking at Steve like he was some sort of puzzle he’d been trying to solve.

And so, Steve leaned in and pulled Tony into a tight hug.

“Oh! That’s— okay, yeah, no, that’s as nice as I thought it would be. Maybe nicer.” Steve felt Tony’s arms wrap around him as the shorter man buried his face into Steve’s shoulder. “Definitely nicer.”

Steve couldn’t help but tease him for earlier to lighten the mood a bit. “So, you call the cat ‘honeybuns?’”

“Shut up, Rogers, we’re having a moment,” Tony’s voice was slightly muffled by his shoulder.

He laughed as he pulled away from Tony, but as he did so, his mind was flooded with the newfound knowledge that Tony fit perfectly into his arms, like two puzzle pieces fitting together. Unsure of what to do with that information, he just… awkwardly patted Tony on the shoulder and took a step back.

Tony looked a little dazed before he turned back to his worktable, and Steve was almost certain his own face was red as he made his way over to the couch in the corner, where he’d left behind a sketchbook the last time he visited Tony. Orion followed him and hopped up onto the couch beside him, suddenly transfixed by the pencil moving as he drew, swatting at it occasionally.

There was a pounding in his chest, mixed with a fluttery pitter-patter, and his mind kept drifting to Tony and his breathtaking smile, and… _Oh._

So _that’s_ what he had been feeling the past few weeks. Well, Bucky had always said that Steve wasn’t the best at dealing with his own emotions.

After that day, Steve started spending more time in Tony’s workshop. It had been something he’d done occasionally before what he had been mentally referring to as The Realization, enough so that Tony had given him his own access code and told him that he was welcome anytime Tony was down there working.

Sometimes Orion would be in the workshop with Tony, and Steve would take up residency on the couch and observe their interactions while he drew. Even Tony’s bots seemed to be taken with the little cat. When Dum-E wasn’t making questionable smoothies for Tony, the bot would dangle a toy from his claw for Orion to jump up and smack around.

“You know, he likes to ride around on Dum-E’s base like he’s some sort of Roomba,” Tony laughed, eyes full of warmth when he looked over at his bot playing with the cat. (After that Steve had googled ‘cats and roomba’ and had not been disappointed by the results.)

Sometimes it’d just be him and Tony, and he’d still find himself sketching the genius hard at work, grease and oil smears on his face, hair sticking up where he’d ran his hands through it.

He wondered if the others had any idea what Tony Stark was really like when his masks were down.

Whenever Sam would drop by the Tower when he was in from DC, Orion would follow him around and sat next to him wherever he landed. Steve would admit it was pretty stinkin’ adorable to watch their cat act like a little host whenever their friends visited.

“We could use a friendly little guy like you at the VA,” Sam commented while some of them were gathered in the kitchen. Orion was headbutting his hand for ear scratches.

“You can’t take our baby.” Clint pointed a fork threateningly in his direction.

“Get your own, Wilson. He’s ours.” Tony added.

“Chill, guys, I won’t catnap your baby.” Sam raised his hands in surrender and rolled his eyes at their antics. 

Clint turned his attention to Tony. “Since when do you claim him?”

“He’s grown on me a bit,” Tony answered with an air of nonchalance that Steve knew now was fake.

One day Steve and Clint were watching television in the living room, and Clint spotted Bucky carrying Orion around and started cackling with glee.

“Hey Buck, come over here. I have an idea.”

Bucky gave the archer a wary look but complied with his request anyway. Clint grabbed him by the shoulder and told him to stand still, then he started maneuvering him into a pose where he was holding Orion close to his chest in a defensive stance.

“Do you have a gun on you?” Clint asked during the process.

“What? No.” Bucky answered, sounding perplexed.

“Okay, here’s a knife.” He accepted the knife from Clint because there was no point in questioning the man.

“Here, can you make a face like this?” Clint showed him an image on his phone of a… samurai holding a cat.

“Why didn’t you just show me that to begin with?”

“Being handsy is much more fun.” Clint winked and gave Bucky’s arm a squeeze before backing away and getting his phone’s camera ready.

“Definitely feeling like a third wheel right now.” Steve chimed in from where he was watching from the couch.

“You should be used to that, Stevie,” his best friend teased him.

Apparently Clint posted the picture he took of Bucky holding Orion to the Avengers’ twitter account, and by the end of the week it had several hundred thousand retweets or something. Clint told Steve it had become a “meme,” and Steve guessed that must’ve been a good thing.

Fury stopped by the Tower one day without announcing himself as usual, and Orion wasted no time in greeting their surprise guest.

The man gave the little cat the strangest look, as if he was almost wary of him. “That’s a cat, right?”

“...of course he’s a cat. What the fuck else would he be?” Tony retorted, but Fury just gave him a dubious look.

Orion and Fury had a weird staring contest of sorts before Fury gave in and cautiously pet him, having determined there was no threat. Life at the Tower was generally weird all the time, but seeing Director Fury hesitant around a small housecat of all things really took the cake that week.

Later that night, Steve found himself spending time with Tony in his workshop yet again. He was watching Dum-E wheel around the room, “cleaning” while Orion was riding on the bot’s base.

“Steve, I regret to inform you that you’ve lost your position as my favorite.”

“I was your favorite?” He ignored the way he heart thudded in his chest. “Who do I have to challenge to win back the title?”

“Fluffbutt over there is the new reigning favorite.”

“Damn. I think he’s a bit out of my weight class,” Steve commented distractedly, his focus now on his sketchbook and a drawing of Tony he had started on.

“Anyway. I think I know how Fury lost his eye.”

“Oh, you do?” He finally looked up from his drawing to find Tony with the utmost serious expression on his face.

“A cat.”

Steve burst out laughing at that. “And what makes you think so?”

“He’s afraid of our cat,” Tony answered matter-of-factly. (“_Our_ cat, Steve repeated internally.)

“I tried prying info from Coulson about it, but he won’t confirm. Just said ‘It’s classified. Director Fury had an encounter with a highly dangerous lifeform.’” Tony mocked Coulson’s tone perfectly and then nodded in Orion’s direction, which just made Steve laugh more.

Steve found himself... relieved that this was the direction his life was going now. When he had woken up from the ice, he had felt so lost and alone. The Avengers had given him something to latch onto when Tony invited them all to live in his tower after the Chitauri invasion. Finding and saving Bucky had been nothing short of a miracle, but there was no way he would have been able to do it without his team supporting him. He didn’t long for the past anymore. He had for months after the ice, but now that the only piece of his past that had him still looking back was at his side, Steve felt like the only way to go was forward. 

He was rediscovering the things that he loved that he hadn’t had time for back during the war, and also discovering new things that he loved in the present. New… people who he loved, too. Steve was grateful that their cat had given him a reason to spend more time with Tony and see sides of him that were usually hidden under layers of self-preservation. 

He loved watching how Tony interacted with Orion, loved watching him get completely engrossed in his work to the point of tuning out the rest of the world. Steve wasn’t exactly sure what to even call whatever was happening between between the two of them, but he had hope that maybe someday it could be something more.

It was the night of Valentine’s Day, and most of the other Avengers were out or just doing their own thing for the evening. Meanwhile, Steve was lounging on the couch in the living room with Orion asleep on his lap, watching whatever ridiculous romcom movie he’d come across while flipping through the channels.

“Hey, honeybuns.”

Steve looked up as Tony walked into the room, cradling a cup of fresh coffee in his hands like a lifeline.

“Is that me or the cat?”

“The cat, of course. You’re sweetcakes,” he answered with an eye roll loaded with fondness.

“Riiight,” Steve drawled. “Don’t know how I got those two confused.”

“Look at that,” Tony motioned to the cat absolutely sound asleep on top of Steve. “You’re like his personal kitty furnace.”

Tony gently poked at Orion’s soft tummy as he sat down on the couch right next to Steve. “Hey, sharing is caring. He’s my furnace, too.”

Steve definitely couldn’t help the way he heart always sped up every time Tony said anything remotely possessive in regards to him, even if it was just a joke.

“‘m cold,” Tony whined as he snuggled in impossibly close to Steve’s side, leaning his head against his shoulder. Steve wondered if the other man was close enough to feel the way his heart was absolutely pounding.

“Maybe that’s because you’re running around in a t-shirt while it’s still winter.”

“Need a blanket,” he murmured into his cup of coffee.

Steve reached behind him to pull the blanket off the back of the couch and then stretched it out across them. Orion grumbled in discontent at being jostled during the process, but he quickly fell back asleep once Steve stopped moving. “I thought you had some sort of gala or fundraiser thing to go to tonight?”

“Yep, but they didn’t actually need me there. I’d rather be here tonight, anyway.” He sat up to put his now empty coffee cup on the table then promptly returned to plastering himself to Steve’s side. “What are we watching?”

“I have no idea, honestly.” He could feel his brain going into overdrive from the proximity to Tony. He was sharing a blanket. With Tony. Also, it just so happened to be Valentine’s Day.

But he decided to just enjoy the moment and not question it. As Steve let himself lean into Tony, he thought he heard a tiny sigh of contentment come from the other man. His eyelids were drooping shut, and he looked like he was about to drift off to sleep at any moment now that he was wrapped up like a burrito in the blanket. Steve gently rested his head against the top of Tony’s and returned his focus back to whatever stupid movie was playing on TV.

Yeah, whatever was going on between them was pretty nice.

**Author's Note:**

> This was largely inspired by how my own big dumb orange baby moved in while I was away at school. I came home for winter break and [he was stretched out across the arm of the couch](https://twitter.com/unclechrom/status/1164696437822824448) like he’d lived here his whole life. 
> 
> I love stories about cats adopting their humans so please share yours if you have one!
> 
> Also, there will be snippets posted for this… storyline? as I work on them! (probably with very little regularity because I’m incapable of that)
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/unclechrom) or the corner of [tumblr](https://ylissianprince.tumblr.com/) I crawled back to a few weeks ago.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
